


Tortuous Electricity

by Autobratty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, It's not super shippy but it's a ship all the same, M/M, Well of All Sparks, life after death, no graphic death btw, the afterspark, the allspark - Freeform, they're already dead lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-07 00:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autobratty/pseuds/Autobratty
Summary: Kaon died. The next mech to die was The Pet - Dominus. Therefore, they entered the Allspark one after the other. This is how their encounter went.





	Tortuous Electricity

**Author's Note:**

> _Well this is torturous_  
>  Electricity between both of us  
> And this is dangerous, 'cause I want you so much  
> But I hate your guts  
> I hate you  
> (Daughter, “Landfill”)

When Kaon came to, his hands immediately flew to his throat. Huh…his head was still attached. He sat up and looked around, still touching his neck, as if afraid that his head would fall off of it the moment he drew his hands away.

He sat alone in a white void, no end to it in any direction, no visible distinction between ground and sky; all what stark and sterile and it _creeped him out_.

It was at that point that he realized he was not observing his surroundings using non-visual sensors. He was _actually seeing it_.

One hand still on his neck, his other flew to his face, sticking his finger in what would have been an empty socket, but instead, he ended up poking himself hard in a golden optic.  
“Ow! What the hell…?!”

Was… was this the Afterspark?

Kaon had stood and, with nothing else to do, walked in silence for what felt like an eternity. He nearly jumped out of his plating when a mech suddenly materialized near him, lying flat on his back. 

When he realized that the other mech was unconscious, he dared to move closer, and although the other’s plating was clean and polished and unmarred - as was his own - he immediately recognized the mech.

The Pet. The original Vos. _Dominus_.

A set of red optics flew open, and Kaon scrambled backwards, out of the other mech’s line of vision. All logic would point to him being undomesticated.

As a group, taking down Dominus had been easy, but by himself… Well. This was likely going to end very, very badly.

Then again, they were already dead. What could this mech do to him when they weren’t even alive anymore? Since they were restored to “perfection” (body-wise), wouldn’t any injuries be automatically healed? Could physical pain even exist here?

While Kaon’s processor swam with questions, Dominus had sat up, rubbing his helm, eyes shut again. He paused, rebooted his optics, and stared down at his hands.

His hands. Not his paws. Not the hooks of his Vos armor, nor the hands of the armor he’d worn his entire life. His irreducible form’s hands, complete with fingertips that were sharp like claws. 

The sound of fans whirring and electricity crackling noisily to his left caused Dominus to turn his head, and his crimson eyes flared in shock.

“Vo… Dominus?” Kaon nearly slipped up and called him by his DJD name. The mech was a traitor; there was a new Vos now.

Dominus blinked owlishly, hunched in on himself. When Kaon tried to move closer, he flinched.

Kaon sighed and looked away, keeping his distance. “You know, I thought we were doing Megatron’s work. Thought that everything we did in his name was right and just. It was gruesome, true, but they had it coming to them. I thought we were justified in what we were doing: ridding the universe of those who followed their spark rather than the Decepticon way.” Kaon flicked the fan inside the turbine on his chest, watching it spin idly instead of meeting his former teammate’s gaze. “Then I followed _my_ spark, and look where it got me.”

He paused, looking up.“Do you… do you remember? Wait, let me rephrase that. _What_ do you remember?”

Dominus frowned, staring down at his hands, flexing his claws. “I remember being Vos. I remember the armor. I remember being one of _you_.” His hands became fists. “I remember getting caught. I remember sitting on your alt-mode, strapped down, while Helex used his regular-sized set of hands to delicately pull apart my Vos armor, piece by piece, torturously slow. Then my inner armor. Watching him throw it all into Tesarus’ shredder.

“Then I remember Tesarus, Helex and Tarn staring down at me as if I was a _thing_ , instead of a _person_ , and talking about what to do with me as if I wasn’t there.” He paused. “I… remember you trying to appeal to Tarn. Trying to make him consider an option other than torturing me to death.” Dominus pursed his lips beneath his mustache. “What you failed to realize was that dying wasn’t my greatest fear, nor being subjected to the torture I’d inflicted upon others. What I’d feared most, my entire life, was exactly you suggested: treating me like an animal.”

Dominus uncurled his fingers, noticing that his claws had made tiny puncture wounds in his palms, and watched curiously as the holes closed up nearly instantly. When he spoke again, his voice was smaller, weaker. “When I woke up, I could still think, but at the same time, somehow couldn’t. It was like my entire being had been squeezed into a hole the size of a pinprick, and trapped inside a vessel I had no control of. I knew what _it_ was thinking - whatever my body had become - but I had no control over it.

“People think that when someone is domesticated, their ability to think for themselves is taken away.” Dominus shook his head ruefully. “If only that were the case. I wished _every damn day_ that my consciousness would just fizzle out, and that I could just rest in peace.” He chuckled darkly. “I guess there really is no rest for the wicked, hm?”

The entire time Dominus had been talking, Kaon had kept quiet, simply watching the other. It was surreal. However, his last comment brought him back to his senses.

“Does this not count? Is this not what you wanted?”

At last, Dominus looked back to him. His optics were dim and possessed a hollow quality. “No, it isn’t,” he stated flatly. “I wanted to _rest_. To fall asleep, and not wake up. I didn’t want to wake up all to find one of my executors sitting next to me in the void.”

Kaon spluttered in protest, “We didn’t _execute_ you -”

“No,” Dominus interrupted. “You’re right. You did so much worse. Death would’ve been a mercy. That was the point, wasn’t it?”

Kaon said nothing.

Dominus let the silence hang between them a while, a thick blanket threatening to suffocate them both. Electric currents crackled and popped along Kaon’s plating, getting between seams and stinging uncomfortably. He didn’t even flinch.

“M’ sorry.”

“Beg pardon?”

Only in a slightly less soft voice, Kaon murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Even after hearing it twice, Dominus wasn’t entirely sure that his audi0 receptors weren’t malfunctioning. “You’re _what?_ You’re _sorry?_ ”

Kaon nodded once, staring down at his hands, watching nervous sparks dance over his fingertips. “I just… I was being selfish. I was built to Megatron’s specifications, designed to be a literal killing machine. You were forged, right?”

After a small nod from Dominus, he continued, “You knew about peace and kindness and _love_. Those were all foreign concepts to me, and largely still are. Peace through tyranny, albeit the Decepticon motto... doesn’t make sense to some people. They say you can’t have peace when you live under tyranny. Maybe they’re right. The closest thing I ever got to “peace” was… was when you and I were together. Not on the battlefield; just sitting on the Peaceful Tyranny in the rec room, reading quietly. Listening to the tapping noise of your hooks on the datapad when you scrolled down or moved to a new chapter. And tyranny took that away from me.

“I wanted to hate you for betraying us. For betraying _me_. But I couldn’t; not really. I hated what you did, but I didn’t hate YOU. I thought that by letting them domesticate you instead of kill you, I’d be at least preserving you, or some part of you. And when you’d stay by my side all day and curl up with me at night, it was easy to think that you were somehow still _you_ , and that you’d forgiven me.”

Kaon shut his optics. “It was foolish. And you were unconscious at the time, but… that’s how I died. Being foolish. The Autobots had captured you, and I begged for a ceasefire because I didn’t want them to hurt you. Overlord mocked Tarn, saying he was all bark and no bite, the leader of a bunch of saps, and… I guess he lost it. He took me into his arms and held me close, which, you know, Tarn can be very tender and tactile at times, so I thought he was genuinely trying to comfort me.” He touched his neck again, feeling for some sort of scar or weld marks that didn’t exist. “He tore my head clean off.”

Finally meeting Dominus’ gaze, Kaon stated, “I don’t expect you to forgive me. What I let them do to you - what I helped them to do to you - was unforgivable. I get that. But I want you to know that I tried to protect you until my last breath.”

Dominus was absolutely floored. All he could do was stare.

However, unlike before, there were optics for him to gaze into now. Bright golden optics, warm and earnest. They say that the optics are the windows to the spark, and as Dominus gazed into his former teammate’s eyes, he knew there was nothing but sincerity in his words.

When Kaon looked away, Dominus moved closer, and gently touched his wrist. “Kaon… Amp.” The other’s helm immediately whipped around in surprise at hearing his real name. Even in the privacy of the Peaceful Tyranny, the DJD never called one another by their original designations. The only reason Kaon was using Dominus’ name was because he was no longer Vos, and calling him The Pet would just be… awkward. Hearing his former teammate call him by his real name made Kaon feel funny inside.

He stared into Dominus’ optics, the only part of him that was really familiar; the majority of the time they’d been together he’d been in his Vos armor, and the rest of it he’d been in his alt mode. He wanted to touch the other’s unusual facial insignia. “Amp, I… I don’t think I can forgive you. Not yet, at least. But I appreciate that you took care of me, even after my domestication, and that you did your best to protect me.” His hand moved from Kaon’s wrist to his cheek, the other immediately leaning against his palm and optics dimming halfway. “However, I suppose we do have the rest of eternity here, hm? Maybe you can work on making amends. Even though I can’t right now, maybe someday I’ll be able to forgive you.

Kaon’s optics brightened, and he placed his hand over Dominus’. “Really? You think so?”

The smaller mech nodded. “I do.” He stood, reaching out a hand to help Kaon to his feet.

Kaon - Amp - took Dominus’ hand, and they walked forward, together.


End file.
